Rotom Formes

I'd like to know why more than one Rotom forme is not allowed due to species clause. They have different types. It would be like making Fearow and Pidgeot banned under species clause; just because they share similar movepools does not mean they are the same Pokemon. Or a better analogy: Zapdos and Honchkrow. They are both Flying-types, and therefore they should be banned under species clause. I'd just like to know the rationalization for this.

They have the same national dex number, and that's the way we've always defined species clause. Plus that sort of brings you into a slippery slope- if we can use more than one Rotom, why not two Giratinas or two Basculins or two Arceuses?

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Honestly, that's Nintendo's species clause. Since we already use our own banlist. I don't know why we can't use our own species clause. I would support changing it to only allowing one Arcues per team. (or just allowing multiple Deoxys, Shaymin, Rotom, Wormadam (or just banning formes that have to hold an item to be different))

There's no use wasting a lot of breath on something that isn't technically feasible. We can have this discussion if and when PO's source changes to be more malleable, but right now this topic doesn't lead anywhere.

All forms have the same "name" as well. All Rotom forms are called "Rotom," all Deoxys forms are called "Deoxys." So in theory, when you have a Rotom in its "fan" form and a Rotom in its "wash" form, you have two of the same Pokemon. Question is, should we define the Species Clause to allow Pokemon with different types, moves, characteristics to be enumerated as different Pokemon? Or should we just stick to defining it through the dex number and name?

I think we should stick to the dex number and name because in essence, they're all the same Pokemon. And I guess the answer to this question is just an opinion to everyone on whatever they wish the species clause should be.

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I think we should stick to the dex number and name because in essence, they're all the same Pokemon. And I guess the answer to this question is just an opinion to everyone on whatever they wish the species clause should be.

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If you have to treat for different versions of the same mons differently, then they're not the same pokemon.

Just look at Deoxys, Shaymin, and Giratina. Deoxys-A dishes out power from it's 180/180/150 offensive stats while deo-D takes hits with its 50/160/160 defs. When building a team or facing a Deoxys-D, nobody would be taking LO Psyshock's and Superpowers from 180/180 Special Attack and Attack. You'd instead expect to take Toxics and Seismic Tosses, and for preparing a team with Deo-A, you should never aim to 2hko/3hko a Deo-A with anything. Giratina is in a similar boat with its regular form designed to take hits and its origin forme expected to deal hits. Also, I doubt you would see very many people on ladder spamming air slashes and Seed Flares for drops and flinches with Shaymin-L as you would see people spamming those moves with Skymin and Serene Grace.

Personally, I see no issue to revising the species clause to "A player cannot have two or more pokemon with the same national dex # and the same forme allowed on the same team." It allows more choices of teams and might lead to some interesting metas and games.

Edit: It did not come to my mind while I was originally posting the proposal, but my intent in proposing the revision was not to include Gastrodon since the difference between the two formes is aesthetic. There is no difference in base stats, movepool, ability choice, or typing (qualities that influence a competitive battle). Another possibilty that was not intended is having two Basculin. Since Basculin's forme changes on ability/version, it also shouldn't matter. That's like looking at a Venusaur or Alakazam and figuring out what gender it is by looking at its sprite.

If the only difference between two formes of two pokemon that share the same Nat. Dex # is the appearance, then they aren't considered two different formes.

Yeah, the only problem then becomes defining what's a forme. I have posted about it in the last thread, but it's basically "whatever Game Freak says is a forme, but has competitively relevant differences", just so we don't act funny and allow blue and green Salamence together or A and Z Unown even though it's Unown.

Yeah I definitely think it's a good point that we tier them all differently but you can't use them on the same team.

It's really an issue of simplicity. The rule we have set is the simplest way to view the situation. I think slightly changing the rule (Steven Snype's definition for example) could still be simple but would be much more practical for what Species Clause is supposed to achieve. Of course this is all based on what you think Species Clause is supposed to achieve, which we've never really determined (Jumpman wanted to test it because he wasn't sure if it broke the metagame, which he believed was the determining factor for clauses). Allowing two of many Pokemon could break the metagame. But given how different the formes are, it's hard to argue that allowing the different formes on the same team would break the metagame, because as was pointed out earlier in the thread, you handle them in different ways anyway.

I'm personally a fan of the simplicity approach, but I definitely understand the other side's argument.

As TPCi and Game Freak start doing more and more to promote competitive battling (Battle [noun], GBU, VGC, Stadium-type games), it would be nice to keep definitions similar rather than different so that players (who will increasingly get their first taste of competitive battling by their rules) can come into ours without having the definition of the clauses completely changed on them. Especially if we're moving towards a "good enough, let's play the damn game" approach rather than analyzing every single aspect of our ruleset to attempt an unachievable "ideal" metagame.